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NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) —The Yankees want Joe Girardi back — so they’d better work quickly. New York will have less than a month to hammer out a deal before the Chicago Cubs can make their move.

The Yankees “aren’t willing” to grant the Cubs permission to speak with Girardi while the sides try to negotiate a new deal, according to the New York Daily News. But that window will close at the end of October, when Girardi’s three-year deal with the Yankees officially expires.

Meanwhile, Chicago appears ready to pounce.

Cubs ownership wants Girardi and plans to make him “a serious contract offer, if given the chance,” ESPN reported Wednesday.

Speculation about the Peoria native heading back to Chicago ramped up this week when the Cubs dismissed manager Dale Sveum.

“Our home has been here (in New York),” he said. “My kids are engrossed in schools here. We haven’t been to Chicago since…I haven’t lived there since 2006. My father’s gone, my mother’s gone … there’s not as much there as there used to be.”

Yankees general manager Brian Cashman had a productive meeting with Girardi on Wednesday as Bombers brass remains “hopeful” they will re-sign the manager “before the end of the month,” the New York Post reported.

It’s been said that Girardi, who led the Yankees to a World Series championship in 2009, can expect an offer of three years at between $12-15 million.

“I think he likes it here,” Cashman said Tuesday. “We’re going to give him a real good reason to stay, and he’s earned that through his six years with us so far.”

Cashman said on WFAN radio Tuesday that the Yankees would be confident in conducting a managerial search. But they’d prefer not to go there. After all, the top candidate already has an office in the Bronx.

“I think we had a really good, strong process that we went through six years ago or so,” Cashman said, referring to the search that yielded Girardi. “If I have to turn to that process again I know it will bear out a tremendous candidate. But I’d rather not go through that process, so I do not have anybody I’m focused on or looking at … but if I have to go that route it’s something we’ll have to focus on rather quickly.”